Samsung BD-C7500 review

A wall-mounted Blu-ray player under a TV? Martin Pipe says 'hang it all'

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Our Verdict

For

AV quality

Networked functions

Integrated Wi-Fi

Sleek design

Against

No cue/review with networked video

Incompatible with some media servers

The Samsung BD-C7500 is one of the most distinctive Blu-ray players currently available. With its ultra-slim form-factor, vertical orientation, glossy black finish and wall bracket, it's crying out to be mounted under your flatscreen TV.

Choose the desk stand at your peril; press the 'eject' button (on the remote, or the player's touch-sensitive control strip) and as it reveals the disc compartment, the entire frontispiece motors leftwards knocking over any lesser objects in its path. You have been warned...

Nevertheless, the BD-C7500 is still a package of plenty in most respects. A 3.5mm socket provides the only analogue alternative (stereo audio and composite video) to the 1080p24-capable HDMI port. Every other terminal is digital – optical audio, a USB port and Ethernet. In keeping with the ethos of wall-mounted minimalism, there's integral Wi-Fi.

In addition to BD Live support, complete with 1GB of cache, are Samsung's Internet@TV platform and a DLNA-compliant networked media player. The C7500 can also deal with compatible files via USB.

Internet@TV, borrowed from recent Samsung tellies, provides PC-free access to a selection of web favourites including YouTube, Twitter and Google. Other widgets can be downloaded to the player, where they share the aforementioned 1GB with BD-Live data.

Among them are simple games such as Texas Hold 'em, picture galleries, news, weather and even TV listings. BBC iPlayer and LoveFilm are also launching soon, and even now, there's plenty to get your teeth into.

And that's before you consider that the C7500 also plays Blu-ray discs, which load speedily courtesy of Samsung's 'Ultra Fast Play' technology – once the disc tray has finished its somewhat tardy dance.

Over the Moon

With a Samsung full HD 40in LCD TV and the C7500 set to output 1080p24, I was thoroughly impressed with what this designer deck could extract from Blu-ray discs.

Moon fared well, to the extent that in the exterior shots, it was possible to identify individual stars against the infinite blackness of space. The saturated hues of instrument panels and subtler flesh tones were conveyed with equal dexterity.

Also impressive is the smoothness of movement, compared to the judder of early Blu-ray hardware. Decent DVD transfers stand their ground, with Samsung's upscaling doing an artifact-free job.

The Samsung BD-C7500 Blu-ray Player offers Internet TV, which delivers the best of the web, straight to your HDTV, with downloadable widgets and apps like BLOCKBUSTER, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Pandora and more. You can shop online, share pictures, catch up with friends and connect to a wide range of streaming digital content at the touch of a button. It also has a wireless LAN adaptor included. Add to that AllShare, which enables content to be seamlessly streamed between DLNA devices, allowing you to play files stored on your PC through your Blu-ray Player. Your Samsung Blu-ray Player is also wall-mountable.